title: Low-temperature thermal properties of a hyperaged geological glass.
abstract: We have measured the specific heat of amber from the Dominican Republic, an ancient geological glass about 20 million years old, in the low-temperature range 0.6 K ≤ T ≤ 26 K, in order to assess the effects of its natural stabilization (hyperageing) process on the low-temperature glassy properties, i.e. boson peak and two-level systems. We have also conducted modulated differential scanning calorimetry experiments to characterize the thermodynamic state of our samples. We found that calorimetric curves exhibit a huge ageing signal ΔH ≈ 5 J g(-1) in the first upscan at the glass transition Tg = 389 K, that completely disappears after heating up (rejuvenating) the sample to T = 395 K for 3 h. To independently evaluate the phonon contribution to the specific heat, Brillouin spectroscopy was performed in the temperature range 80 K ≤ T ≤ 300 K. An expected increase in the Debye level was observed after rejuvenating the Dominican amber. However, no significant change was observed in the low-temperature specific heat of glassy amber after erasing its thermal history: both its boson peak (i.e., the maximum in the Cp/T(3) representation) and the density of tunnelling two-level systems (i.e., the Cp ∼ T contribution at the lowest temperatures) remained essentially the same. Also, a consistent analysis using the soft-potential model of our Cp data and earlier thermal-conductivity data found in the literature further supports our main conclusion, namely, that these glassy 'anomalous' properties at low temperatures remain essentially invariant after strong relaxational processes such as hyperageing.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Bajas Temperaturas, Departamento de Física de la Materia Condensada, Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC) and Instituto Nicolás Cabrera, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, E-28049 Madrid, Spain. tomas.perez@uam.es
authors.forename: Tomás
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pérez-Castañeda
authors.forename: Rafael J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Jiménez Riobóo
authors.forename: Miguel A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Ramos
mesh_terms: D002152:Calorimetry, Differential Scanning; D003080:Cold Temperature; D019015:Geologic Sediments / Q000737:chemistry*; D005898:Glass / Q000737:chemistry*; D006358:Hot Temperature; D013816:Thermodynamics; D044366:Transition Temperature